20 MARCH 2018

Hatton Responds To Zhakiyanov-Tete Claims

Ricky Hatton and Hatton Promotions would like to counter claims made about Zhanat Zhakiyanov by the team of Zolani Tete.

While very initial discussions were held regarding the possibility of Zhakiyanov defending his interim WBA bantamweight title against the South African, they did not progress and no agreement was made.

Online claims that he pulled out of the fight due to weight issues are entirely unfounded.

Zhakiyanov is due to resume training with Ricky Hatton in Manchester in the next few weeks and will be looking to get back in the ring in the near future.

“Zhanat couldn’t have pulled out of facing Tete because the fight wasn’t even made,” Hatton said.

“We held initial conversations with Frank Warren (Tete’s promoter) when we talked about a whole host of things such as Nathan Gorman boxing at the Copper Box and working together in the future, but we never reached the contract and date stage for this fight. Any suggestion we did is just nonsense.

“That said we have a good working relationship with Frank and we will continue to work together in the future. For example, we have Hatton Promotions’ Kiryl Relikh defending his WBA Intercontinental title this Friday on a BoxNation show in Bolton.”